Andrews, Mildred Gwin, 1903-1984

Mildred Gwin Andrews was executive secretary of the Southern Combed Yarn Spinners Association (SCYSA), 1936-1946; expert consultant on textiles to the U.S. Army Office of Quartermaster General and member of the War Production Board's Committee on Industrial Salvage during World War II; field representative for Dudley, Anderson, and Yutzy, a public relations firm, 1946-1952; and director of public relations, 1952-1955, and executive secretary, 1955-1968, of the American Textile Machinery Association (ATMA).

While associated with the ATMA, Andrews managed the American Textile Machinery Exhibitions-International, 1952-1965. In the mid-1950s, Andrews directed publicity for the Tungsten Institute. Throughout her life, Andrews published books and articles chiefly, but not exclusively, about textiles. After 1970, Andrews ran a public relations firm, Andrewtex, in Charlotte, N.C. She was also a consultant for the first International Trade Mart in Honduras and a lecturer on textile machinery in Asian countries.

Mildred Gwin was born in Greenwood, Miss., on 31 January 1903, the daughter of Sally Barnes Humphreys and Samuel Lizzie Gwin. Samuel Gwin was a prominent lawyer and cotton planter in the Delta region of Mississippi. He sent his daughter to the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C. After graduation in 1921, Mildred returned to her Mississippi to study law in her father's office.

On 4 September 1923, Mildred Gwin married Stephen Elliot Barnwell, a cotton broker of Gastonia, N.C. The couple had one child, Gwin Barnwell, who later married Robert I. Dalton, Jr. In November 1937, Mildred Gwin and Stephen Barnwell divorced. Eight years later, Mildred Gwin married Elmer F. Andrews, who died in 1964.

Mildred Gwin Andrews began her lifelong involvement in the textile industry in 1930 as a girl Friday for the Gaston County Yarn Spinners Association, which soon changed its name to the Southern Combed Yarn Spinners Association (SCYSA). At the same time, Mildred took a night job in the spinning room of a cotton mill in order to learn mill technique. She held the post of Executive Secretary of the SCYSA from 1936 until 1946. During World War II, she was a dollar-a-year man as Expert Consultant on Textiles to the U.S. Army Office of Quartermaster General. She also served on the War Production Board's Committee on Industrial Salvage. From 1946 to 1952, Andrews worked with Dudley, Anderson, and Yutzy, a public relations firm. She was a field representative for them, and served on the Textile Committee on Public Relations, helping to run the Textile Information Service.

In 1952, she joined the American Textile Machinery Association (ATMA) as its Director of Public Relations, becoming Executive Secretary of the organization in 1955. In 1968, Andrews retired from the ATMA, but continued to work part-time as a consultant and an assistant to the president of the Association.

While associated with the ATMA, Andrews managed the American Textile Machinery Exhibitions-International, 1952-1965. She also remained active in other fields and with other organizations. In the mid-1950s, for example, she directed publicity for the Tungsten Institute.

Throughout her life, Andrews published numerous books and articles chiefly but not exclusively about textiles. Her writings on the textile industry include Faces We See (1939), Cotton Magic (1944), Profit Life of Textile Machinery (1957), and the posthumously published The Men and the Mills: A History of the Southern Textile Industry (1987), as well as dozens of articles for newsPapers, industry journals, and for several editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica . Written in the 1950s, The Textile Almanac, although never published, provided much material for later articles and for The Men and the Mills . For the Tungsten Institute, Andrews wrote Tungsten: The Story of an Indispensable Metal (1955).

In 1970, Andrews retired from the ATMA and eventually settled in Charlotte, N.C. She remained active as a writer, publishing a serialized history of the textile industry and The Men and the Mills . She also ran a public relations firm, Andrewtex. and was a consultant for the first International Trade Mart in Honduras and lecturer on textile machinery in Asian countries. In North Carolina, Andrews participated in civic organizations, church activities, museum fund raising, and various charity functions. She died in October 1984.

Sources: Southern Oral History Program Collection, Interview H-153 (Southern Historical Collection); Who's Who of American Women (1970-1971).